


no one deserves to be forgotten

by just_anothercrazyfangirl



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, Feelings, First Kiss (for Jeremy), Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions, M/M, Scars, Smut, Some Fluff, jeremy fucking ruined michael, oop but then they do, reliving the Bathroom Scene, the squip fucking ruined jeremy, two boys who don't talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 13:49:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14770799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_anothercrazyfangirl/pseuds/just_anothercrazyfangirl
Summary: He hated how easily he had given in, how easily he had forgotten everything that made him who he was. Everyone who made him who he was. (Michael, his best friend of almost 13 years, who had stayed by his side through thick and thin. Michael, who he promised, only in preschool, to be with forever. Michael, who he abandoned just like that.)Michael, who he hadn’t seen since the play. Who probably never wanted to see him again.Could he blame him?





	no one deserves to be forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> Everything italicized is something the Squip has said. Everything in parenthesis is something Jeremy is thinking. 
> 
> DISCLAIMER: There is some cursing (f-bombs and stuff) so, if you don't like that... this may not be for you.

 

_Everything about you is just terrible._

_Everything about you makes me want to die._

_Repeat it._

_“Everything about me is just terrible. Everything about me makes me want to die.”_

_Everything about me. . ._

_Makes me sick._

~ • ~

Things didn’t get better immediately. After leaving the hospital, he lay in bed, hoping in vain for the voice in his head to fade, for the phantom pains in his back to keep him from remembering the months he wasn’t in control.

_Repeat everything I say, Jeremy._

He hated how easily he had given in, how _easily_ he had forgotten everything that made him who he was. Everyone who made him who he was. (Michael, his best friend of almost 13 years, who had stayed by his side through thick and thin. Michael, who he promised, only in preschool, to be with forever. Michael, who he abandoned just like that.)

Michael, who he hadn’t seen since the play. Who probably never wanted to see him again.

Could he blame him?

~ • ~

Three days (and nearly 36 hours of sleep later), Jeremy awoke to a quiet, but firm, rapping on his bedroom door.

“Jeremy? Can I come in?”

Right. How could he forget his *new and improved* father? Jeremy didn’t know how to feel about the change. Suddenly, there were groceries in the fridge, clothes in the laundry, dishes in the dishwasher. The house was clean, his father was present.

Why did it all feel so fake?

“Um, y-yeah, sure,” Jeremy sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes as Mr. Heere shuffled into the room.

“I don’t know what happened to you, kid, but. . .  if you need to talk about it, I’m here.”

(After years, _years_ of little to no communication between Jeremy and his dad, now he was making an attempt. It felt forced, fake, insincere. He hated it.)

“Okay.”

His dad nodded, once, twice, then made for the door again. “Wait, actually,” he said, pulling Jeremy’s phone out of his pocket and setting it down on the bed. “I think you should call Michael.”

(What?)

“What?”

“You two have been friends for years. You haven’t talked properly in months. It’s unnerving.”

“B-but--”

_Your stammering’s a chore._

“I haven’t been in a catatonic state this entire time, Jeremy, I know you two hang out all the time. And now you don’t. And I truly don’t think it’s healthy.” Jeremy wanted to retaliate, (yeah, and sitting in your room staring at the wall, clutching your vodka like a lifeline is totally healthy.) He figured that wouldn’t do either one of them any good, so he clasped his hands in his lap and stared determinedly at his sheets.

 _Those sheets are childish, Jeremy. Do you want to be a loser forever?_ A pang jolted up his spine and he involuntarily jumped.

Mr. Heere sighed, “I have work. Call Michael, kid, it would do you some good.” And he was gone.

Jeremy glanced over at his phone briefly and looked away. (Why not call him? He’s your best friend _._ You never even apologized.)

_I’ve been blocking him from your field of vision._

_“Optic nerve blocking, on.”_

He picked up the phone and dialed.

~ • ~

Which is how they got here, Michael sitting on the floor of Jeremy’s room, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt, and Jeremy, picking nervously at the loose ends of his blankets.

“So,” Jeremy started. “How have--”

“Why am I here?” Michael’s voice cracked and wavered and he wouldn’t meet Jeremy’s eye. The sight of him made Jeremy want to cry.

“Um. I wanted. . .”

“You said we needed to talk.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I. . .  need to apologize.”

Michael chuckled darkly and pulled his hands away from his shirt. “For what?”

“For everything.”

Michael was silent. Jeremy cleared his throat and continued, “For not listening to you about the Squip in the first place. For. . .  for abandoning you and not being there for you.”

“What did it tell you?”

“What?”

It came out a bit harsher this time. “What did it tell you about me? Why did you have to avoid me?”

His throat constricted. _Michael is a link to “Jeremy 1.0”. To upgrade, you must be willing to make sacrifices._

“The Squip. . .  it told me that. . . . that I had to be willing to make sacrifices to upgrade.”

“Sacrifices? Upgrade?”

“If I wanted to “be more chill”, I had to be willing to. . .  leave you.”

“And so you just. . .  did? Just like that? That easily?” And finally, Michael met his eye, tears streaming down his face as he stared blankly at the pale boy in front of him.

Jeremy slid off the bed, resisting the urge to pull Michael into a hug. “Micah,”

“I thought I was your favorite person. You just left me in the dust to be popular.”

“I’m sorry, Michael, I’m so, so sorry,”

(Michael, who he hurt beyond repair.)

~ • ~

Life wasn’t going to go back to the way it was pre-Squip in an instant. He had to fix his relationship with his dad, fix his relationship with Michael. Fix everything.

(Did he know how? No.)

He tried his best. He started sitting with Michael again, and over time, Christine, Chloe, Brooke, Jake and Rich joined them. Sometimes Jenna, too.

They rode in his PT Cruiser and sang off key versions of Phil Collins, Bob Marley, Taylor Swift. They went to 7-11 almost daily, inhaling copious amounts of slushies and sugar, bouncing up and down the aisles. They played video games and watched movies and did everything they had before.

And Jeremy so desperately wanted everything to be the same. He wanted to feel the way he had all those years they’d known each other.

But he could feel the electroshock current running through his veins every time they touched, every time they hung out. And he could see the toll it was taking on his friend.

Michael didn’t say anything about it for a while. (Out of courtesy? Spite? Anger? Hurt?) Until he did. One day, in his basement, while they were playing video games and he offhandedly ruffled the pale boy’s hair. Jeremy flinched away from him and kept his eyes downcast.

It was quiet for a second until Michael sighed, “Okay, dude, what is this? Do you not. . .  want me to touch you? Because I don’t have to if you don’t want.” Jeremy couldn’t see Michael’s face, but he sounded guarded, slightly hurt.

Their entire relationship had been dotted with physical contact: cuddling, poking, wrestling. To give that up made Jeremy ache inside.

“No, Mike, it’s not that. It’s. . .  the Squip, still, I think.”

Michael turned to face him cautiously, eyes laced with concern.

“The Squip?”

Jeremy nodded, still keeping his gaze toward the floor. “A-anytime I would think about you, it would, um. . .  just kinda shock me, I guess. Like an electrostatic current?”

“You’re telling me that the supercomputer in your brain would _shock_ you anytime you thought about me,”

“Yeah,”

(There was the unspoken thought that he could practically hear. " _I caused you this pain?_ ”)

“Jere, I didn’t know--”

“I know. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

It was quiet for another moment before Michael said, “Dude, look at me.” Jeremy forced his eyes upward, into blurry pools of brown. “It’s okay, right? We’ll get through this together.”

Together. From beginning to end.

~ • ~

But life left scars. Physically and metaphorically. Mentally and emotionally.

Jeremy had his share of all of them. Too many of them.

(No one had ever seen them. He had been careful to never take off his shirt in front of anyone. No one needed to know, so no one ever would.)

Honestly, they shouldn’t have even been having an argument like this, especially over something with such little magnitude as this.

“You’ve known me for how many years? I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this,”

“Me? You’re the one getting upset,” Jeremy sputtered indignantly.

“Well, I’m not going to have you go to sleep in that,” Michael gestured vaguely at the shirt Jeremy had haphazardly thrown on that morning, “especially not on this bed,”

“But. . .  the bathroom,” (He doesn’t understand, _he doesn’t understand_ )

Michael fixed him with a level stare. “I told you, my mom is in there, and is probably going to be in there for the next hour.”

“But. . .”

“Jeremy. What’s wrong? Why are you so upset about this? Just change, dude, I’ve seen you shirtless hundreds of times already--”

“It’s because I have scars _,_ okay?”

“Scars,” Michael repeated quietly.

Without properly thinking, he pulled his shirt over his head and turned away from Michael, displaying the long, jagged scars that ran up and down his back.

The silence in the room was suffocating and thick and Jeremy could barely breathe.

“Were these. . .  the scars you were talking about? From the electrocurrent thing?”

There was no use in lying. “Y-yeah,”

“Oh my god, Jeremy, oh my god,” And Michael sounded so repulsed (oh my god, I’ve made such a huge mistake, what have I done?). But then, he heard a very quiet, “May I touch you?”

Jeremy swore his heart skipped a few beats before he nodded. Gentle fingers traced the scars on the small of his back. A beat, then, “Come here,” He turned around inquisitively and Michael pulled him onto the bed beside him. Jeremy shifted onto his side, breath shallow as he focused on the boy behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he would hear him mumble occasionally. “That fucking Squip thing,” At that, Jeremy snorted.

It grew quiet in the bedroom, the only noises Michael’s quiet mumbling and Jeremy’s (labored) breathing.

He hadn’t realized how tired he was, and he found himself dozing off to the gentle touches. His breathing had almost slowed, but when he felt a kiss on his upper back, he tensed. “Mike?”

Michael froze behind him, and when he pulled away, he sounded frantic. “Sorry, that was stupid, Jere, I’m so sorry--”

“No, Michael, wait, no,” He grabbed the other’s arm before he could pull away and rolled to the other side. He wasn’t prepared for how close they would be, how their noses touched, how Michael smelled of artificial cherry and mint toothpaste. “Please,” he whispered.

Michael was silent, Adam’s apple bobbing. Jeremy tilted his nose up and nuzzled into his neck. “Please,”

Then, Michael’s lips were on his, and he placed his hand on his cheek, and Jeremy moved his hand to rest in his hair--

Michael broke away first. “Oh, my god,” he murmured.

“Do it again?” Jeremy asked shyly.

“J-- Are you sure? I mean--”

Jeremy cut him off by kissing him firmly, hand in his hair tightening as he wound their legs together. When they pulled apart, Michael’s lips were red and swollen, and he felt a rush of euphoria that (wow, I just did that).

_I’m blocking Michael from--_

“I think I’m gay.”

Michael’s laugh (clear, sweet, a happy thing that he loved) drowned out the voice in his head.

(Maybe he could get better.)

~ • ~

It was easier to heal with Michael. (Michael, who loved him. Michael, who trusted him. Michael, who he would never leave again.)

But Jeremy could still sense the doubt that lingered in the back of Michael’s mind.

(Because of course there would be doubt. He’d left him once. Why not leave again?)

Jeremy made it a goal of his to let Michael know he was loved too. So when they were wrapped in each other, watching movies or playing games or just being together, Jeremy would say, “I promise you I’ll stay forever.”

In the beginning, he was granted with a tiny, disbelieving scoff. At that, he would press kisses to Michael’s available skin; shoulders, neck, chest, arms. He’d wait for the tension to drain from the other’s body before he stopped.

(I won’t, I swear it.)

It continued like this for months, Jeremy promising, Michael disbelieving. But they tried, because slotted together, in each other’s arms, they knew that this was what they wanted. This was what they needed.

Once, though, he whispered, “I’m in love with you, Michael Mell,” and Michael froze. He sat, coiled like a wire, looking straight ahead at the wall. He gave no indication that he’d heard the other boy.

(Oh, fuck, what did I do?)

“Mike? What’s wrong?”

A sharp inhale. “What did you say?”

“I-I said. . .  I’m, um, I’m in love with you,”

Michael was silent. (Unnerving, because Michael was _never_ silent for long periods of time unless something was really bothering him.)

“Mike?”

“I want to believe you, Jere. I want to believe you so _bad_.”

“But you don’t.”

“Those months--” his breath caught and he took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling before continuing, “those months without you _sucked_. Because you were my best friend for almost my whole life and you just. . .  left me.”

He still had his head tilted upward, and Jeremy came to sit in front of him, fingers brushing lightly over Michael’s arms. They sat like that for a while, until he composed himself enough to continue. “And then at--at Jake’s halloween party, when you shut me out like that, it hurt. And it still kind of does, sometimes.”

“Being shut out like that, by _you_ of all people. . .” Jeremy could now see the tears flowing freely down Michael’s face, “I wanted to hate you, but I couldn’t, because how could I? How could I hate someone I had loved forever?”

And now their eyes met, green and chocolate. “That’s why I forgave you so quickly. I. . .  thought the quickest way to stop hating myself was to stop loving you.” He scoffed, “Looking back on it, throwing myself into our daily routine right away probably wasn’t the best course of action for that decision.”

Jeremy couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Do you regret it?”

A bitter smile, “Sometimes. Now I feel like I’ve opened myself up to an even bigger opportunity for heartbreak.”

“I’m not leaving, Michael.” With that, Jeremy surged forward and kissed him with a bruising force. He threw all his emotions into that one kiss, (I will never leave you, I’m so sorry, I love you). When they pulled away for air, he leaned their foreheads together, noses bumping gently. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Michael nodded, soft smile adorning his lips. “Okay.”

(That was all Jeremy needed. An opportunity to prove to him that he was loved.)

~ • ~

There was the deal with sex.

_We’ll fix that, Jeremy._

_What did I tell you about that?_

_I’m doing my job for a reason, Jeremy. The less you think about it, the less it will hurt._

Occasionally, if things got too heated, he would feel the phantom shock resonate through his body, and he’d have to stop. Michael knew that.

(Jeremy had gotten nervous the first few times. “I’m sorry,” he’d said, “I know you want this, and I do too, but I just--”

“Jere. It’s okay. I get it, I do.”

“Are you--”

“Shh. I love you.”)

But sometimes, being with Michael, being together, would drown out the voice, would dull the pain. Sometimes, he would make it easier to heal.

Michael was hovering over Jeremy, pressing sloppy kisses down his neck. He took his time, sucking dark bruises into pale skin, threading fingers through brown hair. Something began to pool in Jeremy’s stomach as he clutched the soft material of Michael’s shirt.

“Michael,” he whined.

He could feel him grinning into his neck as he answered innocently, “Yes?”

Lips shifted to his jaw, then his throat, then his shoulder. “ _M_ _ichael_ ,”

The taller boy ignored him, choosing instead to fiddle with the hem of Jeremy’s shirt. He looked up with a question in his eyes, and words died in Jeremy’s throat. His pupils were blown, hair mussed, grinning as though he’d won the lottery. “May I?” he murmured.

All Jeremy could do was nod, watching Michael pull his shirt off and toss it to the floor (oh my god, how was he so hot?) and following suit after. They lay there for a second, drinking the other in before colliding in a passionate kiss.

Michael took his sweet time, pressing suckling kisses from his shoulder to his stomach, languishing in the way the other writhed beneath him. He paused right above his sweatpants, blowing softly at the exposed skin.

“May I?” he asked, low and heady. Jeremy dazedly whimpered at the feel of fingers toying with his waistband. “Jere?”

(God, he needed something, anything, _now._ ) He bucked his hips up, but Michael held firm to his sides, keeping his body held down. He mouthed aimlessly at the skin right below his belly button, “Baby, I need an answer,”

Jeremy glared down at him, and Michael stifled laughter into the sheets. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

He dipped his finger into the band, shoving the sweatpants off roughly and slotting their mouths together in a desperate kiss. (Michael kissed like a firecracker: rough, passionate, loud, amazing.)

Michael hovered dangerously close above the other boy, smiling into his mouth when he felt a sharp tug in his hair. He pulled away, dragging a finger slowly over the bulge in Jeremy’s boxers, and Jeremy _moaned_ , vibrating deep in his chest.

He kissed down his chest again, mouth pressed flush against his skin, “I’m going to take these off. Is that okay?”

“ _Please_ ,”

And suddenly, Michael’s tongue was on him and (oh my god, never stop, please never stop, oh my god, oh my god) it was hot, and fast, and _so good_ and it was all he could do to chant, “Michael, Michael, Michael,”

Stars burst behind his eyes as he came, nails digging into Michael’s hair as he rode out the final waves. They lay, panting, for a minute before Michael rolled to his side and let out a sigh.

“Good?” He cooed smugly and Jeremy nuzzled into his shoulder and nodded.

(He waited for the Squip to yell at him, for the inevitable shock that came with disobey. It never came.

He was getting better. He was okay.)

~ • ~

Yes. Healing took time. It took patience, love, trust. It took the people you loved, and the people who loved you the most.

(He thought it was safe to say he would be fine.)

And he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! I finally finished this work, and I'm actually pretty proud. I love this musical, the pairing, the characters, and pretty much everything about it, so yeah! It's done finally 
> 
> Leave comments down below if you liked it (y'all i put a pause on studying for finals to write this [also give me prompts! i'm going to have like, 2 months off for summer and i'm going to be bored as heck so like... yeah])
> 
> Thank you guys! I love you <3
> 
> (also yes i am aware that the electroshock "therapy" most likely doesn't leave scars but i needed it for a pLOT DEVICE OKAY)  
> (can you tell that i never write smut lmao)


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